Copper Canyon Travel
Railroad History

The idea for the railroad occurred to Albert Kinsey Owen long about 1861.  Owen was an American engineer from Pennsylvania.  He saw it as a way to more readily ship goods from the United States to the Orient and South America by use of the Mexican deep water port at Puerto Topolobompo.  Owen's vision never came true, because by the time the railroad was finished 100 years later other modes of transportation had made the railway unnecessary as an international shipping route.  (Owen was also what people of that time called a "Utopian", and another part of his vision was to establish a socialist colony of like-minded individuals near Los Mochis, which was accomplished but did not last more than a few years.) 

The Mexican government awarded Owen with a contract two years later, in 1863, but he could not find adequate funding to begin construction.  The contract was then given to the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre, and Pacific Railway Company.  They laid tracks from Ciudad Juárez to Casas Grandes, then totally abandoned the project, which was to remain simply a dream for the remainder of the 19th century. 

Enrique Creel was the next American entrepreneur to pick up the gauntlet in 1910.  His company, the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway, completed the route to La Junta, Chihuahua and began the Ojinaga to Creel portion of the railroad.  As you may have guessed, the town of Creel was named after him.  Unfortunately, the Mexican Revolution came along in 1914 and put an end to his efforts. 

The section of the railroad from Puerto Topolobompo to El Fuerte was finished in 1928.  Presidente Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the effort in 1940, but the section of the railroad between El Fuerte to Creel (by far the most daunting to build) required another 21 years.  The railroad was finally completed in 1961 at a cost of over 1 billion pesos to the Mexican government.  The cost of round trip tickets as of 12/2003 was about $200 U.S., which has to make the Copper Canyon train ride about one of the best value-per-dollar vacations on the entire planet.